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Architects urged “not to work with” British Museum due to BP partnership
CategoriesSustainable News

Architects urged “not to work with” British Museum due to BP partnership

By Zarkon Group,

Activist collective BP or not BP? has called on architects not to work on the British Museum’s recently announced redevelopment masterplan as it will be funded by oil company BP.

In an Instagram post on Friday, the organisation, which seeks to end oil sponsorship of culture, said: “Architects: we invite you to pledge not to work with the British Museum until their new partnership with BP is dropped.”

“The British Museum recently accepted the biggest single corporate donation to the arts in the UK,” it added.

“£50 million from oil giant BP, over the next ten years to ‘help deliver the museum’s redevelopment masterplan’. This donation, amidst an escalating climate crisis, has also been described as ‘one of the biggest, most brazen greenwashing sponsorship deals the sector has ever seen.'”

BP or not BP? urged architects to not apply for the job in an Instagram post

In December, the British Museum announced plans for an architectural competition to redevelop around 7,500 square metres of gallery space at its central London location, with applications set to open in spring.

This would be supported by the decade-long partnership with BP.

“A new multi-year partnership with BP will support the future transformation of the museum by contributing £50 million over 10 years,” the museum said.

“The partnership will also help deliver on plans to maintain public access for generations to come. The museum is very grateful for BP’s support at this early stage of the masterplan.”

“Architects can’t in good faith work with The British Museum”

However, BP or not BP?, said that working on the redevelopment would go against guidance from climate network Architects Declare on how to approach projects.

“Guidance from @architectsdeclare_uk encourages firms to approach projects by evaluating their contributions to mitigating climate breakdown,” it stated.

“This redevelopment will do the opposite: allowing BP to continue its extraction and harm Global South communities across the world who face the worst impacts of the climate crisis.”

“Architects can’t in good faith work with The British Museum until this deal is dropped. Join us and tell the museum to #dropBP!” the organisation added.

Architects Declare also stated that it believed it would be consistent with its declaration for architects to turn down the job.

“UK Architects Declare is committed to moving the design of our built environment towards fully regenerative solutions to the planetary emergency,” the organisation told Dezeen.

“As such, the AD Steering Group do believe it would be consistent with our Declaration’s point 5 for architects to turn down this opportunity because of BP’s sponsorship: ‘Evaluate all new projects against the aspiration to contribute positively to mitigating climate breakdown, and encourage our clients to adopt this approach’.”

“A number of companies have publicly declared they will not work on fossil fuel infrastructure and most of the big cultural institutions have now broken links with fossil fuel sponsorship,” it added.

“It is particularly important that when some organisations show such leadership, they are supported by the broader industry.”

British Museum “squarely on the wrong side of history”

BP or not BP? told Dezeen that it believes there are other sponsorship alternatives for the British Museum and that letting BP use its well-known London building for events “continues a neocolonial legacy of extractivism”.

“Just as there are alternatives to fossil fuels, there are also alternatives to taking dirty sponsorship money from fossil fuel producers like BP,” BP or not BP? member Francesca Willow said.

“The British Museum’s decision to keep backing one of the architects of the climate crisis – for a further 10 years – has put the museum squarely on the wrong side of history,” she continued.

“For years, BP has used the iconic museum building as the backdrop for lobbying politicians and burnishing its brand, continuing a neocolonial legacy of extractivism and oppression,” she added. “Architects should refuse to play any part in BP’s planet-wrecking agenda.”

Museum disappointed by call for boycott

In response, the museum said that the campaign was “disappointing” as the redevelopment was aimed at creating a net-zero estate.

“The British Museum is in urgent need of renovation and the masterplan will be one of the most significant cultural redevelopments ever undertaken and private funding is essential,” a spokesperson for the British Museum told Dezeen.

“It’s disappointing campaign groups are calling for a boycott when we’ve said we will be looking at design proposals with a particular focus on sustainable and environmental expertise, working with us responsibly to create a net-zero estate,” it added.

“We look forward to seeing submissions that aim to restore the highly significant and celebrated listed buildings on the site.”

The architectural competition would look to introduce “contemporary architecture and innovative gallery displays” to the museum’s “Western Range”, which contains collections from Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome.

Architects Declare has previously condemned architecture studios for refusing to stop designing airports.

The issue of sustainability in architecture was also highlighted by the climate action group Architects Climate Action Network in 2022, when it claimed that the Royal British Institute for Architects’ Stirling Prize shortlist “promotes architecture that pollutes the planet”.

The image is by Shutterstock.



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Australia bans engineered stone due to silicosis risk
CategoriesInterior Design

Australia bans engineered stone due to silicosis risk

By Zarkon Group,

Australia has become the first country in the world to ban engineered stone, following rising cases of silicosis among workers who handle the material.

The ban was agreed at a meeting of Australian federal and state workplace ministers on Wednesday, and will come into place across the country from 1 July 2024.

The ban targets engineered stone, also known as agglomerated stone – a type of material made by mixing crushed stone with a resin binder.

“This is a dangerous product”

While it is valued as a durable and affordable alternative to natural stone for kitchen benchtops, the material can be dangerous while being cut because it releases a fine silica dust into the air.

Australia has recorded rising cases of the lung disease silicosis in stonemasons who have handled the product, leading it to be dubbed “the asbestos of the 2020s” by union leader Zach Smith.

“This is a dangerous product that’s known to cause the potentially fatal disease silicosis, and it has no place in our workplaces,” said Queensland industrial relations minister Grace Grace in a statement following the meeting.

“The rate of silicosis illness in Australia for those working with engineered stone is unacceptable,” said her Western Australian counterpart Simone McGurk. “This prohibition will ensure future generations of workers are protected from silicosis associated with working with engineered stone.”

Ban follows report finding no safe level of silica in engineered stone

The move comes nine months after an investigation by three Australian news outlets accused supplier Caesarstone of not doing enough to warn people of the dangers of working with the material and the country’s construction union launched a campaign calling for the ban.

A subsequent report by the national policy body Safe Work Australia found that engineered stone workers were significantly over-represented in silicosis cases and were being diagnosed with the disease at much younger ages than workers from other industries, with most being under the age of 35.

It also found that the risk from engineered stone was distinct from that of natural stone due to the material’s physical and chemical composition, and that this was likely contributing to more rapid and severe disease.

The report concluded that no level of silica was safe in engineered stone and that the material should be prohibited in its entirety.

Silicosis is caused by tiny particles of silica becoming embedded in the lining of the lungs and manifests in symptoms such as shortness of breath, cough, weakness and fatigue.

The condition is life-altering and potentially fatal, with many formerly healthy young sufferers describing being unable to work or play with their kids.

Caesarstone commits to supplying Australia with “alternative products”

In response to news of the ban, Caesarstone commented that while it disagreed with the decision, it is taking the necessary steps to ensure supply of alternative materials to Australian consumers.

“The Caesarstone brand is well known in Australia and its products have earned tremendous success over the years,” said Caesarstone CEO Yos Shiran. “We are already taking steps to supply our Australian market with alternative products while maintaining our strong market presence.”

It has previously argued that its material is safe if handled correctly and that the silicosis danger was the fault of employers and work safety bodies.

Other companies including Ikea and Bunnings had already committed to phasing out the material in the Australian market.

The ban will apply to the manufacturing, supplying, processing and installing of engineered stone but not its removal, repair, disposal or minor modifications.

Australia’s workplace ministers will meet again in March 2024 to finalise details of the ban, including the transition period for contracts that have already been implemented and the precise definition of engineered stone.

The country’s Model Work Health and Safety Regulations currently exclude concrete and cement products, bricks and pavers, porcelain, ceramic tiles, roof tiles, grout, mortar and render, and plasterboard from the definition of engineered stone, but ministers have indicated that additional products would be added to the exemptions.

This may allow future engineered stone products to be exempted from the ban if there is “compelling evidence” that they can be used safely.

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“The world ran out of pink” due to Barbie movie production
CategoriesInterior Design

“The world ran out of pink” due to Barbie movie production

By Zarkon Group,

The sets of Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Barbie movie required such vast amounts of pink paint, they swallowed up one company’s entire global supply, according to production designer Sarah Greenwood.

Speaking to Architectural Digest, Gerwig revealed that the team constructed the movie’s fluorescent Barbie Land sets almost entirely from scratch at the Warner Bros Studios Leavesden – all the way down to the sky, which was hand-painted rather than CGI rendered.

Barbie Land in Barbie movie
Barbie Land sets were built from scratch in a movie lot

“We were literally creating the alternate universe of Barbie Land,” she told the magazine. “Everything needed to be tactile, because toys are, above all, things you touch.”

To recreate the almost monochromatic colour palette of Barbie’s Dreamhouses, the set design team had to source a bottomless supply of pink paint to cover everything from lampposts to road signs.

Barbie movie cast dancing in a pink town square
Almost everything from lamp posts to sidewalks is rendered in vibrant pink

In particular, the production used a highly saturated shade by US manufacturer Rosco to capture the hyperreality of Barbie Land.

“I wanted the pinks to be very bright, and everything to be almost too much,” Gerwig told Architectural Digest.

So much paint was needed, in fact, that Greenwood says the movie’s production caused a worldwide shortage of that particular hue.

“The world ran out of pink,” she joked.

Rosco later told the LA Times that the company’s supply chain had already been disrupted when the movie began production at the start of 2022, due to the lingering aftereffects of the coronavirus pandemic and the winter storm that shocked Texas the previous year.

“There was this shortage and then we gave them everything we could – I don’t know they can claim credit,” Rosco’s vice president of global marketing Lauren Proud told the LA Times, before conceding that “they did clean us out on paint”.

Margot Robbie in a pink car
Margot Robbie plays the movie’s main character

Since stills for the upcoming movie were first released a year ago, the all-pink hyper-feminine “Barbiecore” aesthetic has infiltrated the design world, with Google searches skyrocketing and the term accumulating more than 349 million views on TikTok.

Earlier this year, Barbie manufacturer Mattel collaborated with Pin-Up magazine to release a monograph on the architecture and interiors of Barbie’s Dreamhouse to mark its 60th anniversary.

“There have been so many books and entire PhDs on Barbie, but never really on her many houses and her furniture,” Pin-Up founder Felix Burrichter told Dezeen.

“So we thought it would be a good idea to make one and treat it as a serious subject, in the same way that Barbie has been treated as a serious subject over the years.”

The image is by Mattel.

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